User Comments - frances
frances
Posted on: Cat in the Hat
May 6, 2008 at 2:49 PMThis dialog seemed way more creepy to me than the original Cat in the Hat. It was the voices. Both scary!
Posted on: Yang Jie's Diary: Everyone Is Dating
May 6, 2008 at 12:16 PMlight - both 的 (de) and 啊 (a) get regularly added to positive answers like duì and shì （是的 shì de，对啊 duì a，etc...) I get the impression that the "de" makes an answer more definite, and the "a" makes it more conversational. I'm sure it's more complicated than that. Maybe one of the more experienced speakers can add something.
Posted on: Diet Coke
May 6, 2008 at 4:36 AMsuntzu8- You really, really can't. I dare anyone to find a chinese-english dictionary, or even a chinese-chinese dictionary with a slurpee entry!
Posted on: Cat in the Hat
May 6, 2008 at 4:33 AMI though that shui2 meant "someone" and shei2 meant "who". Is that an oversimplification, or am I just completely confused?
Posted on: Cat in the Hat
May 5, 2008 at 11:45 PMThis lesson really brings into relief the lack of definite articles in Chinese. Can these be translated? How? Seriously, "a cat in a hat" is very different from "the cat in the hat". That distinction is important in this children's story. The pride of the cat in the story is communicated by the absolute assumption that there is no possibility that this cat could ever be confused with any other cat. (The cat's pride is possibly the central theme of the story.) All of this is communicated by the use of "the". Is this one of these things that will just never communicate in Chinese?
Posted on: Mobile Repairman
May 5, 2008 at 5:30 PMRich, the movie "The Road Home" (originally 我的父亲母亲) had a traveling repairman in it too, but he fixed broken pottery. He operated like the one in this lesson, but I thought his presence was a bit fishy in the movie. It was a very small town and I couldn't imagine he could find enough customers to make a living! Then when he tried to convince the old lady that her bowl wasn't worth fixing I couldn't believe he was trying to give up business. (I doubt he had a broken pottery recycling program.)
Posted on: Diet Coke
May 5, 2008 at 1:34 PMI'm a fan of the ABC Chinese-English Dictionary. It's listed alphabetically by pinyin, but whenever a character has an alternate pronunciation there is a reference to the entry (or entries) with under the other pinyin. This dictionary is available in print, but also as part of the Wenlin software for PC/Mac, and as part of the PlecoDict program for PocketPC and PalmOS. (I have the print edition and the PlecoDict/PocketPC edition. Since my PDA fits comfortably in my purse, that copy gets more use.)
Posted on: Diet Coke
May 3, 2008 at 5:31 PMOops. I misrepresented the tone on "lè". The error was entirely my own, not the book's.
Posted on: Diet Coke
May 3, 2008 at 5:25 PMThere's a really interesting note about the origin of the transliteration kĕkŏu-kělě in "The Languages of China" by S. Robert Ramsey: "In the 1930's, when Coca-Cola first began marketing its product in China, the company sponsored a highly publicized contest to find a suitable Chinese name for its soft drink. The winning name, submitted by a man from Shanghai, was kĕkŏu-kělě. This name not only reproduced the English sounds fairly accurately, but the individual syllables put together also had the elegantly-phrased meaning 'tasty and enjoyable.' For this linguistic tour de force the winner received a $50 cash prize." My favorite part of this story is the dollar amount of the prize. They probably spent more that $50 (even in the thirties) advertising the contest. I'm sure $50 was worth a lot more in Shanghai at the time, but for the profits Coke made off this guy, his family should have been on easy street for two generations!
Posted on: Yang Jie's Diary: Everyone Is Dating
May 6, 2008 at 3:44 PMAuntie, you are a treasure. Your explanation confirms the mood I thought the 的 was accomplishing, but makes it much clearer how the mechanism works. I hadn't make the connection between the sub-clause-building 的 and the one in ”是的“. Thank you!